Published shortly after the trilogy, both Guardians and Caves find Christopher getting at the same concerns that drive his most famous work. In a way, the stories, too, belong next to the Tripods. The books will be added to my shelves, slotted in next to the Tripods. I am happy, though, that, at the aforementioned used book sale, I was able to secure the original American paperback editions for both Guardians and Caves. I think it’s great that, amid the seemingly ceaseless flood of new YA fiction, Christopher’s catalog continues to be available. In 2014, Aladdin Books republished much of Christopher’s middle-grade science fiction and fantasy. John Christopher, whose real name was Sam Youd, was a postwar British SF writer who wrote mostly for young people. That’s how The Guardians (1970) and The Lotus Caves (1969) ended up in my possession, the result of an hour spent combing through the offerings at a local library’s used book sale. For this reason, I am predisposed to recognize the name “Christopher” on the spine of small, slim trade paperbacks. I study the covers and reread the blurbs when I clean my shelves. My copy of The White Mountains (1967), the first in the series, has a curious gash in its cover, but otherwise the books - which also include The City of Gold and Lead (1968) and The Pool of Fire (1968) - remain in decent condition. The trilogy occupies a hallowed spot on my bookshelves, having survived various purges. What I remember with far more clarity is the sense of camaraderie that I shared with friends, who, like me, begged their parents to buy them the books and then, with great enthusiasm, raced through them in hopes of keeping pace with each other. I remember somewhat hazily the story of the trilogy, which is, essentially, an inspired follow-up to H.G. I encountered the books as a preteen, 30 years after their original publication. JOHN CHRISTOPHER’S Tripods trilogy (1967-’68) consumed a good chunk of my otherwise scattered attention span in middle school.
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